Vim Based, Powerful Text Editor for Ubuntu – Cream

Before the era of GUI, there’s was just this scary looking big black space surrounded by white texts which was called the “command-line” 😉 . It was the only interface back then and all the programs and their features were based on the keyboard.

Until the mouse came along, most editors at that time had two built in modes. One was the ‘text mode’ which let you insert text and the other was the ‘command mode’, which let the users enter commands for editing the text (cut, copy, delete etc).

‘Vim’ is such an editor that’s still developed and used today but it’s a command-line based tool. ‘Cream’ on the other hand is based on ‘Vim’ but has a graphical user interface and comes with almost all the awesome features of ‘Vim’.

Main features…

*. Since it’s based on the “vim” editor the GUI looks a lot like the command-line “vim” (you know cursors, line representation, changing settings, etc) but still it is newbie friendly too.

*. Find and replace.

*. Change font/size/bold/italic, etc.

*. Check for spellings and gives suggestions.

*. Insert characters.

*. Delete empty lines.

*. Syntax highlighting.

*. Book mark text files.

*. Fully featured print-setup options.

*. Add text filters.

*. Word wrap.

*. Word/text auto completion based on your “typing history” (as with OpenOffice, LibreOffice or other major office productivity suits in general).

*. Comes with a feature called “Expert mode” that makes it easy for you to enter commands or switch to entering Just text as mentioned above (you old-school geek!).

This is just a fraction of its features to mention. You can install the Cream text editor in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by simply issuing the below command in your Terminal window.